Yachts, Electronics  and AIS! - Dudley Jackson October 2009

An old friend from many years ago gave me a call out of the blue and said he had come in to quite a bit of money and had always dreamt of owning a yacht. He knew I was teaching in New Zealand and valued my advice for his first every boat purchase. We had many long conversations about yacht designs, purpose and costs vs depreciation, all of which he ignored and brought the first yacht he saw, a brand new Bavaria 50 cruiser.  Horrified but intrigued about his decision I saw sense in the purchase, for him a busy chap the thought of zero maintenance and an instantly useable item sitting on the dockside was appealing. There was one drawback, a new boat is an empty boat.

Dudley Jackson at the helm of the stunnung Bavaria 50 Cruiser

The standard equipment list was impressive though, Fridge, Freezer, Diesel Heater, Autohelm, Speed & Depth, Furling Main, Furling Genoa, Twin wheels, 3 heads & showers, Hot & cold high pressure water, bow thrusters and more. 

The rig was fitted, a deal done & the yacht launched complete with no name and no insurance and an owner who had never been on the water before.

My brief was to fly over and kit out the yacht  with all that was needed for cruising the Med and the Black Sea where she was based. I started making the normal safety equipment lists and the bits & pieces list and made a separate recommendation for the electronics. I arrived in October.

 We drove to Bavaria doging pony & carts & pot holes and arriving  at the chandleries , The owner who was like a kid in a candy shop pestered the proprietor asking many ‘what’s this for’ questions whilst I carefully selected equipment to make a big stack on the floor. We were there for until 7pm, the owner brought us lunches, coffee & cigarettes!

Getting insurance for a vessel  with no previous experience was of course impossible, but I did secure a local deal with  ‘experienced skipper on board usage’, now I was insured I took her for a spin.

I found she was very easy to handle, a real performer, easy to tack or gybe, easy to reef the mail with a simple turn of a winch but the Genoa took ages to furl, an electric winch was added to the wish list. She glided along at 11 knots with ease, she hove too and stayed there and didn’t heal too much when close hauled. The accommodation is spacious, 5 double cabins, huge cockpit and saloon. The Volvo Penta 75 purred along however I have a few grumbles I want to air. The yacht was very plastic, she felt low quality. The navigation area was wood effect plastic, the floors were fake inlayed printed on plywood. There were no harness points, a poor bilge drain system and the ships wheels felt like they would snap off if a big swell hit, and the Auto Helm overloaded  at 22 knots with a 3m swell  The Bavaria has the quality feel of a caravan, personally I would feel nervous taking it near New Zealand waters. Saying all this it serves its purpose extremely well as a Med cruiser, a stunner to look at and a performance yacht no doubt.

AIS (Automatic Identification System) has been around for a while now, most commercial vessels have it installed but with receivers and transmitting prices coming down its becoming increasing popular with cruisers. The system receives vessel identification signals transmitted from other vessels around you for about a 60km range, it used a VHF Arial. Your receiver converts the signals received in to NMEA protocol understood by nearly all modern GPS chart plotters and laptops. Besides all this technical jargon the outcome for the user is that the tanker he cannot see at night is clearly showing up on his chart plotter. The system can receive up to 26 different types of information about this tanker but only the most important are displayed.

Take a look at the realtime marine trafic in your area here

Current position & time recorded

Vessels heading & speed

Vessels depth & length

Vessels destination & previous track

And finally the vessels name & on some systems , a photo too!

The owner can affirm the position with the radar signal also overlaying where it knows a vessel is. He knows if he is on a collision course!.

In busy areas, shipping lanes etc the system is really useful.  You can view AIS real time on the internet, its fascination looking at the thousands of ships anywhere in the world. I strongly suggest you look at www.marinetraffic.com Now I can track what the new owner is up on the Black Sea to from my desk in New Zealand!

The trip was interesting and educational, I hope to go back next year to deliver the yacht to the Greek islands.

Dudley Jackson – learn2sail.co.nz